Providing effective medical electrical stimulation, for example, in cardiac pacing or neuromodulation, relies, at least in part, upon properly locating implantable medical electrodes within a patient's body. Implantable electrodes are typically mounted on distal portions of implantable medical electrical leads, and proximal connector terminals of the leads are configured for coupling with implantable devices/pulse generators that include electronics and a power supply for providing the stimulation pulses to the electrodes. An implantable lead may include a pair of electrodes and a corresponding pair of elongate conductors, wherein each conductor is coupled to a corresponding electrode and extends proximally therefrom, within an elongate insulative body of the lead, to the connector terminal thereof. Implanting the lead in the patient's body, such that the pair of electrodes is properly positioned to deliver an effective bipolar stimulation vector, and/or to effectively sense electrical activity within the patient's body, may be somewhat challenging and/or time consuming. So, if the lead includes more than two electrodes from which to select a most effective pair, after the lead is positioned for implant within the body, the positioning of the lead may be significantly less tedious.
Furthermore, implantable leads that include a plurality of electrodes from which to select provide greater flexibility for stimulation therapy in general. However, in order to maintain certain standard connections between implantable leads and devices, wherein a standard/limited number of device contacts and corresponding device feedthroughs correspond to a standard/limited number of lead connector terminal contacts, some means for coupling a selected subset of the plurality of lead electrodes to the corresponding limited number of lead connector contacts is required. Although various means for selectively coupling one or two of a plurality of electrodes of an implanted lead to the electronic circuitry of the device, to which the connector terminal of the lead is coupled, has been taught in the past, there is still a need for new and improved designs to facilitate the selective coupling.